Instructions to All Persons: Reflections on Executive Order 9066 (exhibition)

Exhibition mounted by the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 .

Instructions to All Persons was displayed in the museum's downstairs gallery and in the adjoining theater. Viewers entered through the theater, which featured a short video compilation of testimony by Japanese Americans at the Los Angeles hearings of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians in August 1981. Viewers then exited to a display of the original copy of EO9066, on loan from the National Archives. The core of the exhibition was built around a detailed timeline of the roundup, incarceration and redress movement that was printed on the walls of the gallery, augmented by display cases in the middle of the gallery containing relevant documents from JANM's collection. One wall was dedicated to both framed originals and reproductions of about eighty of the exclusion order posters whose opening words provided the title to the exhibition. The exhibition also included contemporary art pieces by Wendy Maruyama and Mike Saijo. The exhibitions ended with Japanese American activism in support of Muslim Americans who were targeted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and with the short video Letters from Camp by Frank Chi. Viewers were given several opportunities to add their own comments and experiences to the exhibition.

Instructions to All Persons opened on February 18, 2017, and was featured in the Los Angeles Day of Remembrance commemoration on that same day. The exhibition was augmented with an outdoor public art installation titled Moving Day during evenings from March 23 to August 11; the installation consisted of projections of the exclusion order posters onto the side of the museum's historic building. Other public programs presented during the run of the exhibition included Residence Elsewhere , a play developed by the East West Players Theatre for Youth that was performed in the gallery; two teacher workshops; and an art workshop by Mike Saijo. The project website also includes lesson plans developed for it. The exhibition closed on August 13, 2017.